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Great Lakes Book
Prologue
Death was standing in the corner, as he often did. He didn't bother her, he never had. Death was not a stranger, how could death be a stranger when you're 98? Death is patient. Death is rarely in a rush.
What puzzled her was that no one else seemed to see him. She noticed the nurses in their starched stiff shirts avoided looking in that corner. She couldn't blame them. They were young. They didn't want to see death. Still, you'd think with their jobs they'd recognize him for what he was, that old guardian of the gates.
"Did you hear Ms tk?"
She turned her head back from the window. "Forgive me doctor, what were you saying?"
"That I can't release you."
"Oh that. So you're going to hold a 98-year-old woman against her will are you?"
"No, I can't hold you against your will."
"Then you mean I am free to go?"
"That's just what I am saying, I cannot let you go, I don't believe you would live long without our care."
"I don't believe I would either," she said cheerfully. "That's why I want to go."
"You want to die?"
"Doctor, I have lived 98 years. I don't want to die, I rather dislike dying in fact, but I do plan to do it with some dignity, certainly not here, with all these," she gestured at her arm, "tubes and wires and nonsense."
The doctor opened his mouth to say something but then, stopped and closed it. She met his gaze unflinchingly and tried to focus on showing him something that might change his mind. "I'm sorry," he said finally.
"What for?" She smiled at him.
He smiled at her. "I'll be back to check on you tomorrow."
"Oh." She nodded. "Well, Doctor, try not to be too disappointed if I'm gone then." She glanced at Death. He wasn't there anymore.
The Doctor closed the door softly behind him. Thought I'd never get rid of him she muttered to herself. She pulled the tubes out of her arm, took the blood pressure cuff off her other arm, and unclipped the heart monitors. She leaned back and shut off all the machines before they started beeping. She lay there in bed for a moment. It wasn't like when she was young, leaping out of bed to start the day. For the last ten years there had been no leaping. It was more a shuffling these days. She missed leaping. She wanted to leap. She wondered if she could leap.
She sat up slowly and slid off the bed to the floor. It wasn't a leap, but a slide was something. You take what you can get. There was a bag sitting in the chair on the other side of the room. Her her daughter had brought it earlier that morning. She walked over and unzipped it. Inside was a new shirt and a pair of pants. They were ugly, but they would do. She put the bag on the floor and sat down to pull on her pants. Wouldn't do to break a hip just before you're supposed to die.
Once she was dressed she put the bag and couple of towels in the bed and pulled the covers up over it. She stepped back and looked at it. It didn't look much like a person, but then again they never noticed death so maybe they wouldn't notice her being gone either.
Her feet were still in slippers and made no sound on the tile hallway. She could hear the nurses talking down in their station. She walked as quickly as she could, but it was harder and harder to draw a breath. She quietly opened the stairway door and slowly let it click shut behind her. She stood at the top of the stairs, panting. Slowly she descended.
The icy wind was a slap in the face. Spring was always that way in the north country. Step outside, and get a slap of cold in the face. She smiled at memories of childhood. Memories of cold spring mornings, running through the woods, the crunch of icy snow breaking under her boots. The smiled faded. She would miss the snow. No she wouldn't she thought, she doubted she'd remember snow at all. It would be a story people told of the olden days. The days with cars, the days with snow.
Her daughter was waiting under the light pole, just as they'd agreed. Her daughter had furrowed brows as she settled herself in the passenger's seat.
A woman plants trees and hemp so that someone of his descendants will be able to build tall ships. We meet him as he comes out of a lawyer's office in Milwaukee, the cold spring wind is blowing down the street. The lake is still frozen, icy clouds billow in the wind. The snow on the ground is patchy though. He drives out to his land is walking among the young trees and fields cleared for hemp. Oak trees and pigs, he's a pig farmer. Regenerative ag. His farm is growing trees for an ark his descendants will build. Long view. Re-incarnation view.
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